Popularity of Salsa music in the dance community...

Chris_Yannick

Chris_Yannick

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Staff member
Somewhat of an age old topic.

I'm surprised that not more people are showing up to watch the live streams of DJs of CoBeatParty.

I estimate the average live viewership is between 50-100 viewers, many of whom are probably DJs themelves. Popular DJs get over 100 viewers, but it doesn't seem to be the norm.

I haven't checked the numbers for live dance classes as much, but I guess the viewership is higher for online dance classes. Makes sense since classes aren't usually free so more people flock to see their favorite teachers give lessons.

Still, I expected cobeatparty to have more viewers, especially now that the group has 15,000+ members and the number keeps growing, but there are no more live viewers than there were at the start of this initiative.

Right now I am watching a guy with 21 live viewers half way into his set!

Where are all the people?!
 
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Smejmoon said:
I watched at first and shared it here, but my ears got tired from bad sound.
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I agree at least half of the sets sound bad, but there are many whose sound is quite exceptional. Yesterday I watched Sergio and Dmitri back to back both with excellent sound. Just gotta know who has decent sound output.

I like it when DJs don't talk over the song and allow the listeners to listen uninterrupted.
 
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Chris_Yannick said:
I agree at least half of the sets sound bad, but there are many whose sound is quite exceptional. Yesterday I watched Sergio and Dmitri back to back both with excellent sound. Just gotta know who has decent sound output.

I like it when DJs don't talk over the song and allow the listeners to listen uninterrupted.
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I used not to like this. But some make it more engaging. Also I understood that some just don't have two turntables (or don't have turntables at all). So better they talk in between.
Also I like when they dance.
I know many of them personally, so it's an added value in these times of not traveling and seeing each other. So I'll watch your show for an hour when you'll make it. :) But not every day.
 
I get it. I also tune in to the DJs I know personally and support them, but I also tune in to a lot of people I don't know just to see what kind of music they have. Some of the best sets were from DJs from the U.S.A. They have their own viewership (less Europeans watching) but I still want to support good music and especially their efforts.

It's just weird that in the beginning when there were less than 500 members in the group, the live viewers are the same as now with over 15,000 members.
 
i watched a couple, but it's usually just not really interesting to watch - only listen.
And as for that, there is better quality options, i usually switch to whatever else.

i think it's a great idea, in my case I just can't really make use of it so far..
 
Latinjazz said:
better quality options
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What are the better options? Just curious.

I really like this format of 24 hours live streaming music. I'm certain to find new music with the rotational nature of this format. And I can always play back sets I've missed from the past.
 
Also, I see this as a golden opportunties for high profile dancers to use this platform. Panagiotis DJ'ed a few sets in the beginning, but there must be a lot more famous dancers who are also DJs. Frankie Martinez for example. It would give more incentive for dancers to listen to music if the high profile celebs endorsed this platform.

As it stands now, I see different groups united but not everyone is together. DJs are united together. The organizers/promoters are united together (with their unitedfordance campaign). I see dance teachers/studio owners trying to transition all their classes online. Not much unity going on. Just a bunch of people doing their own thing.

Oh well, I guess I'm expecting too much from the international dance community. I'm more than contented listening to those who are willing to share their music.
 
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Chris_Yannick said:
What are the better options? Just curious.
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A CD, spotify, radio, etc...

Chris_Yannick said:
Oh well, I guess I'm expecting too much from the international dance community. I'm more than contented listening to those who are willing to share their music.
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Probably both, and of course it's great you appreciate this. Just perhaps before judging the international dance community don't forget you are expecting something specific from them.
Many just want to dance without thinking about the music, and right now they just switch that, others are just using other music resources for their thing.
And honestly - all in all, with every day passing, I feel less like dancing.
My personal mood is not really arising these days. Yes, dancing might help.
But then there is also neighbours, having enough space for dancing, other people having to work and live in the same place, etc...

It's difficult times for expectations, I think. Starting with politics, and ending with CoBeat... :confused:
 
Facebook is also a big turn-off. Very convenient for the DJs - but it makes it easy for the audience to get sidetracked. I personally stopped listening because Facebook (when it isn't toxic) - is usually such a big waste of time.

I would have preferred if the DJs hosted it on a streaming service like SoundCloud or Spotify. It's better to listen to a higher quality stream on our own schedule - so much more convenient for the audience. And that's actually the problem since there already a lot of good streaming options out there.

<RANT>Honestly, we don't really need to see them live. I know a lot of the DJs too and I don't want to watch them working in-person, even more so on a crappy FB livestream.<RANT/OFF>
 
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Chris_Yannick said:
I agree at least half of the sets sound bad
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There you go.

If someone specifically recommends a show in which the DJ is not just pointing a mic at their speakers then I'm up for giving them a try. Otherwise forget it. There are a number of good salsa radio stations, you yourself recently made a Spotify list that might be interesting (I need to download Spotify), there's Youtube, many of us have a collection of downloads and some of us even have CDs and vinyl (although all 3 of my record players are in a different continent to me right now so the vinyl isn't actually doing me much good).
 
I think 70-100 viewers is a very decent number. Also, you were posting about a 10 am (Europe time) set, when the US/Canada crowd is not present yet -- the view numbers tend to go up once they are up. (and then down again once the EU crowd tunes out for the evening)

I tune in everyday from around noon to around 6-7 pm CET but that's only because I can leave it on as background sound while working from home (except for when I have work calls). Then in the evening, around 6-7pm, I tend to turn it off once my bf and I begin our evening time together. I'm guessing others have similar family/work related reasons why they can only tune in for a few hours a day at most, or even less than that (e.g. having to homeschool kids, having to be on lots of work calls, etc).

Probably the main reason for low viewership: many (most?) salsa dancers prefer to listen to salsa music mainly for dancing, not by itself. Also, some of the hardcore dancers probably end up frustrated if they listen for amazing salsa without being able to dance (e.g. while working from home, or simply because they don't have a partner).

Re: the low quality sound some have mentioned: this was an issue in the beginning (I still remember Panagiotis' horrible sound in the first 1-2 weeks -- I really tried to listen to his sets, but I couldn't even last half a song :sing:) -- but over the last 2 weeks many/most DJs have figured out how to improve their sound quality and, at least from the DJs I've been listening to, I can only remember 1-2 sets that had bad sound quality.

Personally I now have my CoBeat DJ favorites, about 7-8 of them, and I try not to miss them :) Some I already knew and loved, like DJ Sergio from Paris, and others I had never heard about, so I was happy to discover them :)

Overall I am super impressed with this whole thing, and I hope many of the lesser known great DJs will get more gigs when the confinement ends.
 
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Chris_Yannick said:
Somewhat of an age old topic.

I'm surprised that not more people are showing up to watch the live streams of DJs of CoBeatParty.

I estimate the average live viewership is between 50-100 viewers, many of whom are probably DJs themelves. Popular DJs get over 100 viewers, but it doesn't seem to be the norm.

I haven't checked the numbers for live dance classes as much, but I guess the viewership is higher for online dance classes. Makes sense since classes aren't usually free so more people flock to see their favorite teachers give lessons.

Still, I expected cobeatparty to have more viewers, especially now that the group has 15,000+ members and the number keeps growing, but there are no more live viewers than there were at the start of this initiative.

Right now I am watching a guy with 21 live viewers half way into his set!

Where are all the people?!
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i guess it depends on few factors

people in the salsa dance community are notorious for not showing interest in the music etc tc a lot of them wouldnt know who the DJs are or who the bands are, whereas they could probably name a lot of instructors

however I wouldnt blame them entirely, there are other factors

after all a live dance class really is a once-off opportunity, whereas a DJ is playing recorded music, there are plenty of other ways for people to find and listen to recorded music
The other thing is that a dance class is visual, where as a DJ is not really. the computer lends itself to visual entertainment, when its music only you need to catch people when they are not sitting at the computer, ironically. Maybe they have the computer on in the room for music purposes but not necessarily sitting at it.
For example if im sitting at a computer, like anybody else, my attention will drift, ill start reading an article and next thing ill close the page by accident and have to go looking for it again sometimes i wont come back to it.

another point is that, i feel it would be amazing to have a system where the mixes are archived and people would be able t go back to it at the time when it suits them. I think people might get more use out of it if this were the case. I find late afternoon to be the perfect time for me to listen to it.

lastly, the sound is very bad an a high number of those DJ sets because of using the onboard laptop or phone mic, they need to get it together. DJs are suppose to know this stuff. I can only go so long listening to that sound, its very hard to listen to.

all in all- my guess is that the regular viewers are the type of people who like, to go hunting for new music, it definitely appeals to that.
 
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Groove On said:
Facebook is also a big turn-off. Very convenient for the DJs - but it makes it easy for the audience to get sidetracked. I personally stopped listening because Facebook (when it isn't toxic) - is usually such a big waste of time.

I would have preferred if the DJs hosted it on a streaming service like SoundCloud or Spotify. It's better to listen to a higher quality stream on our own schedule - so much more convenient for the audience. And that's actually the problem since there already a lot of good streaming options out there.

<RANT>Honestly, we don't really need to see them live. I know a lot of the DJs too and I don't want to watch them working in-person, even more so on a crappy FB livestream.<RANT/OFF>
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I don't know, for me it has been enjoyable to see the live videos and all the different styles of DJing (I knew a few of the DJs but there are many I didn't know or hadn't heard live). If they made on-demand recordings available, I really don't think I would actively go and listen to them, except for the DJs I already know and like, whereas I look forward to the live CoBeat sets every day and discovering great DJs I didn't know before.

I had significantly decreased my salsa listening over the past few years as I got more and more into timba (which to me is much more fun to listen to in and of itself, whereas salsa has become more of a dance-only music for me) -- but some of the CoBeat DJs have reawakened my enjoyment of salsa music outside of dancing.

Though granted, I often listen to the sets as background music while working/exercising/reading, rather than actively listening -- though there are occasional songs that are so good that they make me stop whatever it is I'm doing and just listen :)
 
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One other thing re: views: some people tune in and out, they listen to a part of a set but not all, so the live views may not be as indicative of the total views - for example, the current set (a great DJ from Switzerland) is showing 200+ total views, but only 39 live views (at the moment I checked).

I'm also not sure if the live views are counting people who are watching the video on their computer from the group newsfeed (by switching on the sound directly in the newsfeed video), instead of clicking on the video to open it separately (maybe they are counted in the total views though, but not the live views).
 
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Sabrosura said:
One other thing re: views: some people tune in and out, they listen to a part of a set but not all, so the live views may not be as indicative of the total views - for example, the current set (a great DJ from Switzerland) is showing 200+ total views, but only 39 live views (at the moment I checked).

I'm also not sure if the live views are counting people who are watching the video on their computer from the group newsfeed (by switching on the sound directly in the newsfeed video), instead of clicking on the video to open it separately (maybe they are counted in the total views though, but not the live views).
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The thing is, when I watch the set of a DJ for the entire hour, the live view number stays pretty consistent.

So a DJ might get 200 total views (if FB counts whoever clicked to open the live feed) but the average number of viewers who stay on the feed hovers around 30.

I am also not sure if FB counts views after the live feed ended? If so, then a set may have an inflated total view count from people watching the recording after the fact

I guess it doesn't really matter in the end, though 30 live viewers for any DJ seems really low.
 
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